


but tell me you love this

by postcardmystery



Category: Historical RPF
Genre: Bipolar Disorder, F/M, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-16
Updated: 2012-10-16
Packaged: 2017-11-16 10:03:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/538286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/postcardmystery/pseuds/postcardmystery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I am not worthy, he writes in the dark of his room, Percy’s head on Mary’s chest, his body curled around hers like a cat. I am not worthy, he writes, and if this is not the wrong type of love, he does not know what is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	but tell me you love this

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning for mental health issues (bipolar disorder).

Words are freedom. There is no more to this story than that.

 

 

Words are freedom, but words can build prisons, can tear down this world. ( _His_.) Here is his life, going past in a blur, wine-dark and lived-in, here is everything he could never be. He presses his fingers into Hobhouse’s wrist at Sounion, he fucks a boy in Athens, he fucks a girl in Florence, he fucks and he fucks and they tear long lines into his skin and he never, ever feels whole. Here is a man who became more than a man. Here is a man who cries in the night. Here is a man who never knew who he wanted to be, so he made himself from nothing. Here is a man who does not care if you hate him, but would rather like it if you would, if would be so kind.

Here is a man who wanted to be free and became his own jailer. Here is a man who changed the world. Here is what words can do, if you let them, if you do but try.

 

 

Every eye in London is on him, and he courts them with the boots he wears and the curls in his hair and how he sits, back straight and a book in his hands, at every ball, and does not dance, does not smile, but sits and waits and if they’re moths, he burns brighter every day. Every eye in London is on him, and he’d have it no other way, wears his indiscretions like a scarlet sash, powders his face and bares his teeth and walks with his head held high, high, high.

He is the Lord Byron, the last of his name, and he knows what they whisper of him in corners. Fame is an empty thing, and respect much the same, but infamy?

“I would rather your husband than you, my Lady,” he says, because infamy, he thinks, as he throws a sly glance at a youth with dark hair and red lips and a smile just for him, infamy, there’s nothing  _quite_ like it.

 

 

“That’s Percy Shelley,” says a man whose name Byron will not bother to remember, and Shelley’s hair is dark, his wrists slim, his eyes trained on a girl in the corner, ink on her fingers and her gaze just as hot, just as clever.

“And the young lady?” says Byron, and his companion says, “That would be Mary—”

“You have my thanks,” says Byron, and walks away, slides an arm around Shelley’s waist and allows himself a small smirk as he leans into the contact, says, “I am the Lord Byron, Mr Shelley, and I am much told that I am greatly corrupting to know. But as you are an atheist, my dear Shelley, I feel I can impose myself on you without any great risk to your person.”

“I do not believe in corruption,” says Shelley, his skin hot through his thin shirt, his pulse quick under Byron’s hand, and Byron smiles with only a little edge, says, “I am sure you do not.”

 

 

His downfall is quick but not painless. There is a wrong type of love. There is a wrong type of love, and he has felt it, has felt it since he was fourteen years old. There is a wrong type of love, and all of London knows.

 _Come to Switzerland_ , he writes to Shelley,  _come and be light in this gloom, for I cannot be._

There is a wrong type of love. He closes his eyes at night, remembers Shelley’s pulse beneath his hand, Mary’s eyes narrowing in interest, and  _oh_ , does he know it well.

 

 

“Hullo, Percy,” he says, and Shelley waves a distracted hand, says, “I’m listening to the sea, B.”

Byron eyes the shore of Lake Geneva, sighs patiently, says, “We are hundreds of miles from the sea, Percy.”

“But I can feel it in my fingertips,” says Percy, digging the heel of his boot into the dirt he’s lying in, and there’s soil in his hair and down his shirt and smeared across his forehead; dirt Byron reaches up to brush away, draws his hand back black with filth.

“I am surprised you can feel anything in your fingertips,” says Byron, “it appears to have escaped your notice, my good man, but they are quite blue.”

“Oh,” says Shelley, holding them up to his face, his expression politely bemused, “so they are.”

“Come in and have a bath, for God’s sake, Percy,” says Byron, his fingers loosely curling around Shelley’s wrist, and as Shelley’s eyes focus, lose their distant look, he grins, says, “I believe you just wish to persuade me into nakedness, B.”

“How very dare you,” says Byron, pulling Percy to his feet and starting to march him back to the villa, “absolutely no persuasion shall be required.”

 

 

He came to the villa for quiet, and achieved the opposite. Shelley meant Mary, who  _is_  quiet, and quick, and distressingly clever, but Mary also meant Claire, a girl he loved for a day or two and then loved no more, as is his wont. (Unlike many - most - of the others, he wishes himself capable of loving Claire. Her wit is always sharp and her eyes are always dancing. She knows what he wants. In that, they are one. She wants him. In that, regrettably, they are not.)

Shelley was difficult to seduce, at first, which was a surprise. Mary, however, was not, which was much more surprising still.

“I do not know what you mean, B,” Shelley had said, on the first night, and Mary sighed, her smile gentle and amused, her eyes soft as she had said, “Kiss him, my love.”

“But you are in the  _room_ , Mary,” Shelley had said, his voice high with shock, and Mary had raised an eyebrow, said, “That is rather the point, Percy, isn’t it, Byron?”

Byron encircled Shelley’s neck with his hand, let his teeth graze his earlobe, caught Shelley’s weight as his knees buckled, met Mary’s eyes over Shelley’s shoulder, said with a smirk, “Indeed, Miss Godwin, it is.”

 

 

“Our Percy was contemplating the sea,” says Byron, perfectly flat, to Mary’s quizzical tilt of the head, from where she lies, languid, on the bed, and she nods, says, “I trust that you kept him out of that damned lake, Byron.”

“It was a trial, but I managed,” says Byron, and Shelley comes into the room, naked and wet, says, “He whispered in my ear for the entire walk home, Mary. He said such scandalous things that I cannot bring myself to repeat them.”

“I would wager that the man himself can,” says Mary, returning to brushing her hair, smoothing it across the lace of her petticoat, and glancing at Byron with a small smile.

“What would the lady hear first?” says Byron, “What I would do to her, or to her Percy?”

“Don’t, B,” says Shelley, coming to sit between Byron’s spread legs, where he lounges in the windowseat, “I blush even to remember it.”

Byron leans down, trails his hand across Shelley’s collarbone, says, his eyes on Mary’s face, “Shall I cause you to blush again, Percy?”

“If you would be so kind,” says Mary, her voice low, amused, and Byron laughs, says, “It is not so very bad, if I am truthful. Percy has set me such a low bar for what he considers indecent, it is extremely easy to rise above it.”

“He is going to make a remark about the word ‘rise’, now,” says Shelley, wryly, his head resting on Byron’s knee, “you see, B, I know you much too well.”

“After tonight, I promise you that you shall know me better,” says Byron, and grins again at Shelley’s blush, “now do be quiet and permit me to tell Mary of my plans.”

“Your threats are not very frightening, B,” says Shelley, but obediently falls quiet as Byron clears his throat, says, “Actually, I must confess, that was rather a lie. Tonight I intend to participate little.”

“Do explain,” says Mary, still brushing her hair, her hand only trembling a little as Byron strokes a fingertip up and down Shelley’s neck, and Byron hooks his finger into Shelley’s mouth, continues as if he was merely taking tea, “I think Percy should take you there on the bed, while I watch from my vantage point here.”

“That sounds as if would be terribly unamusing for you, my Lord,” says Mary, and Byron shrugs, fluid, draws Shelley’s head back and leans down to kiss him, answers, “Oh, I think not. I shall watch from here until Percy reaches completion, and then I shall take his place.”

“And if you reach completion before he does?” says Mary, and Shelley starts underneath Byron’s ministrations, says, his skin flushing once more, “Mary!”

Byron’s smile is wicked in its intensity as he pushes Shelley towards the bed, pulls at his cuff with practised boredom, says, “Oh, do not doubt I will, Mary. That is why, I have always been sure, that I have a  _tongue_.”

 

 

Shelley is always intense beneath Byron’s hands, his mouth panting out words that he, at all other times, would never stoop to say. He is obedient and quick, does all he is told and cannot be quieted, not even with a hand pushing over his mouth. When Claire is away he spends entire days naked, is easily pressed between Mary’s legs, his skin once again hot beneath Byron’s hand. 

Byron touches Mary with reverence, never takes both of them at once, does not even touch them both in tandem. He knows of the wrong type of love, feels so very sure that they do not feel it for him. He lets Mary push him down and ride him, forces himself to take pleasure and not pain in how she always curls her hand into Shelley’s while she does it. He kisses Shelley and fists at his cock, bats his hands away when Shelley reaches for his own. His is not worthy. He hears it in his mind like a litany, like a chant, like a prayer.

 _I am not worthy_ , he writes in the dark of his room, Percy’s head on Mary’s chest, his body curled around hers like a cat.  _I am not worthy_ , he writes, and if this is not the wrong type of love, he does not know what is.

 

 

“Do you think me slow, B?” says Shelley, and Byron looks up from his Sappho, says, “Do not be foolish, Percy, you know I could never think such a thing. Perhaps I think you  _foolish_ , yes, but you have forgotten about the existence of the peacocks rather often of late.”

“Your menagerie is ridiculous, B,” mutters Shelley, and Byron laughs, says, “What did you have for supper, Percy?”

Shelley frowns, genuinely trying to remember, and Byron waves his hand, says, “No, I did not— do not attempt to answer that, Percy, I know you cannot. Whatever brought this mood on? I thought your writing had gone well of late?”

“This has nothing to do with my writing,” says Shelley, and, for once, his smile is much dirtier than his friend’s, “and all to do with you, B.”

“I do not know what you mean,” says Byron, and Shelley inches forward, says, “I rather believe you do.”

“I—” says Byron, and Shelley tangles his hand in the soft hair at the nape of Byron’s neck, snakes his hand inside Byron’s breeches, rubs at his hipbone, says, “You can have the both of us, B.”

Byron goes still, his skin beading with sweat, his eyes wide.

“Shall I tell you what we are to do this evening, B?” says Shelley, leaning in to breathe against, but never quite press down upon, Byron’s neck, “I am going to use my mouth on you while Mary kisses you. Then, Mary shall take me before you, and you shall not be allowed to touch us at all. Do not frown so, you know that was the correct way about. Then you shall use your mouth upon Mary as I work you with my hands, and then? Then, we shall give you a choice, B, of me, or of Mary, or of both.”

Shelley draws back, then kisses Byron’s mouth softly, whispers, “Now, B, does that sound like a plan?”

Byron takes Shelley’s hand and presses it to where his cock is already achingly hard, and barely even manages to nod.

“Good,” says Shelley, his eyes lighting up, “Mary will be ever so glad that I did it right.”

Byron starts to laugh against Shelley’s neck, manages to force out, “Of course—”

“No, B,” says Shelley, “it was us both. Now, would you please take off your breeches, you know I am not so very good at lacing?”

 

 

“You are much more cunning than I gave you credit for,” says Byron, and Shelley smiles down at where Mary curls into his side, pulls Byron into another kiss, says, “Do you know, people tell me that rather often?”

 

 

It’s bliss, except for how it isn’t, except for how nothing ever is. He still wakes up and the world is black whether his eyes are closed are open. He still paces all night, the nights when his skin’s on wrong, the nights where he flinches at every place Mary touches him, or kisses Shelley with such fervour Shelley struggles to keep up. It’s heaven, except for how he doesn’t believe in heaven. It’s freedom, but for how, just across a little channel of water, lies his home.

“England is not our home,” says Shelley, staring up at the stars, “no man on earth has a home. No nation is any better than any other, B, surely you must know that.”

“Hmm,” says Byron, his fingers tangled in Mary’s hair where she sleeps, her skin pink and lovely, on Shelley’s chest.

“Home is not God or skin or nation, B,” says Shelley, his head coming to rest on Byron’s shoulder, “home is merely what a man knows by rote.”

“What a man loves, you mean,” says Byron, and Shelley frowns, says, “Is that not what I said, B?”

“I suppose for you, you did,” says Byron, and falls quiet, listens to the lapping of the water at the shore beneath them, studies Shelley’s pale skin the the moonlight, twines his other hand into Shelley’s.

“How do you feel about Venice?” he says, and is met with one of Shelley’s brilliant, unhinged, legendary smiles.

“As do I,” he says, and squeezes Shelley’s hand, does not think of England, does not, for one shining, lovely moment, regret a single, single thing.


End file.
